Stay on target

The Davinci IQ is another high-end vape, but this one is… ridiculous. Excessive, perhaps? It looks like the exact thing you’d get if you put a ton of Silicon Valley folks in a room and asked them to design a vape. The status lights are a 17×3 grid of super-bright white LEDs. Yes, of course it has an app. And yeah, it’s expensive. But, despite that, and some way over-engineered parts, it’s an excellent companion.

My biggest issue with the IQ is that it’s complicated. And, unfortunately, that’s kind of the first thing you bump into. Turning it on takes five (dear lord, why?) quick, consecutive button presses. And once it’s on, there’s no real standby mode. It just starts going.

That’s a bit frustrating because you don’t have time to familiarize yourself with settings or get a handle on how the whole process works. The most important setting — temperature — is easy enough to control on your own. There are two dedicated buttons that will arrow up or down, and they select different “smart paths,” or temperature ranges the vape will gradually go through during the session. It’s a cool setting, but it also highlights the bigger problem of the thing being too hard to use. A lot of people pooh-pooh simplification, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of a Firefly or FlightBox. Simplicity isn’t bad, simplicity is nice. You got enough to worry about as it is, without having to fiddle with a bunch of esoteric settings.

The good news, is that the complaints pretty much end there. While it’s got that very modern-industrial start-up aesthetic, it’s remarkably well built. It feels solid in the hand; it’s fairly compact — easily concealed in a pocket, provided you’re not in skinny jeans.

Magnetic clasps were used throughout, giving the device a solid feel that should have some longevity. The loading chamber is made from a weirdly sloped chrome, which, again, seems over-the-top at first, but quickly proves useful. The slope makes it easy to cram your material into the vape over and then tamp it down with an interchangeable black pearl-like sphere attached to the over the lid. This helps avoid a lot of mess. When it’s time to close it, the lid swings quickly closed, but always seems a bit softer than I’d expect given the magnetic clasp. I suspect there’s something in the hinge to slow down the mechanism, and that may wear out with time, but for now it’s endlessly satisfying and gives the feeling that the lid is almost floating down to lock in place.

On the other side, you have the business end (i.e. the mouthpiece). It uses the same type of fastener as the over, but this time, it reveals a few fun bits. First is the battery. You probably won’t need to fiddle with it too much, and the mechanism that holds it uses a simple lock to keep it secure. There’s another chamber though, just next to it, which holds a small canister. That, the instructions say can be used to either accent the flavor of whatever it is that you’re vaping (Davinci suggests quite a few herbs like green tea leaves or chamomile) with another herb, or! You can you can use it to store extra. And there’s even a little slot to hold the tool you need to open the canister built right in.

It’s an impressive sight, but the taste and smell is even better. Vapor quality is thick and heady with a rich flavor, especially with green tea (yes, I’m serious… okay… half-joking… maybe). Plus, if you do choose to dig into the settings, you can actually get quite a bit mileage out of your herb, though I’d recommend using the app to adjust settings, because lord knows trying to fiddle with those buttons is just a waste of time.